'Well,' said I, looking about me on the battlements by which we sat
surrounded, 'this is a case in which Mahomet must certainly come to
the mountain.'

'Pardon me,' said Mr. Romaine; 'you know already your uncle is an
aged man; but I have not yet told you that he is quite broken up,
and his death shortly looked for. No, no, there is no doubt about
it--it is the mountain that must come to Mahomet.'

'From an Englishman, the remark is certainly significant,' said I;
'but you are of course, and by trade, a keeper of men's secrets,
and I see you keep that of Cousin Alain, which is not the mark of a
truculent patriotism, to say the least.'

'I am first of all the lawyer of your family!' says he.

'That being so,' said I, 'I can perhaps stretch a point myself.
This rock is very high, and it is very steep; a man might come by a
devil of a fall from almost any part of it, and yet I believe I
have a pair of wings that might carry me just so far as to the
bottom. Once at the bottom I am helpless.'

'And perhaps it is just then that I could step in,' returned the
lawyer. 'Suppose by some contingency, at which I make no guess,
and on which I offer no opinion--'

But here I interrupted him. 'One word ere you go further. I am
under no parole,' said I.

'I understood so much,' he replied, 'although some of you French
gentry find their word sit lightly on them.'

'Sir, I am not one of those,' said I.

'To do you plain justice, I do not think you one,' said he.
'Suppose yourself, then, set free and at the bottom of the rock,'
he continued, 'although I may not be able to do much, I believe I
can do something to help you on your road. In the first place I
would carry this, whether in an inside pocket or my shoe.' And he
passed me a bundle of bank notes.

'No harm in that,' said I, at once concealing them.

'In the second place,' he resumed, 'it is a great way from here to
where your uncle lives--Amersham Place, not far from Dunstable; you
have a great part of Britain to get through; and for the first
stages, I must leave you to your own luck and ingenuity. I have no
acquaintance here in Scotland, or at least' (with a grimace) 'no
dishonest ones. But further to the south, about Wakefield, I am
told there is a gentleman called Burchell Fenn, who is not so
particular as some others, and might be willing to give you a cast
forward. In fact, sir, I believe it's the man's trade: a piece of
knowledge that burns my mouth. But that is what you get by
meddling with rogues; and perhaps the biggest rogue now extant, M.
de Saint-Yves, is your cousin, M. Alain.'

'If this be a man of my cousin's,' I observed, 'I am perhaps better
to keep clear of him?'

'It was through some paper of your cousin's that we came across his
trail,' replied the lawyer. 'But I am inclined to think, so far as
anything is safe in such a nasty business, you might apply to the
man Fenn. You might even, I think, use the Viscount's name; and
the little trick of family resemblance might come in. How, for
instance, if you were to call yourself his brother?'

'It might be done,' said I. 'But look here a moment? You propose
to me a very difficult game: I have apparently a devil of an
opponent in my cousin; and, being a prisoner of war, I can scarcely
be said to hold good cards. For what stakes, then, am I playing?'

'They are very large,' said he. 'Your great-uncle is immensely
rich--immensely rich. He was wise in time; he smelt the revolution
long before; sold all that he could, and had all that was movable
transported to England through my firm. There are considerable
estates in England; Amersham Place itself is very fine; and he has
much money, wisely invested. He lives, indeed, like a prince. And
of what use is it to him? He has lost all that was worth living
for--his family, his country; he has seen his king and queen
murdered; he has seen all these miseries and infamies,' pursued the
lawyer, with a rising inflection and a heightening colour; and then
broke suddenly off,--'In short, sir, he has seen all the advantages
of that government for which his nephew carries arms, and he has
the misfortune not to like them.'

'You speak with a bitterness that I suppose I must excuse,' said I;
'yet which of us has the more reason to be bitter? This man, my
uncle, M.